‘The excuses must stop’ – Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes W15 experiments under more scrutiny after China GP

Lewis Hamilton and a Mercedes logo

Former F1 technical director Gary Anderson has warned Lewis Hamilton that “the excuses must stop” after more Mercedes W15 set-up experiments derailed his Chinese Grand Prix weekend.

Just hours after finishing second to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull in the sprint race in Shanghai, Hamilton could only manage 18th place in qualifying after making a mistake at the hairpin on his Q1 lap.

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Speaking after his elimination, the seven-time World Champion revealed he and Mercedes used the relaxed parc ferme rules on a sprint weekend to make “massive changes” between the mini race and qualifying with Hamilton and team-mate George Russell taking divergent set-up directions.

Hamilton could only recover to ninth on race day in China, continuing the trend of the 39-year-old finishing behind Russell at every race the Mercedes pair have finished so far this season.

Anderson, the former Jordan designer, has been a consistent critic of Mercedes during the team’s struggles under the ground effect regulations in place since 2022.

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And after “another disappointing and confusing weekend” for the Ferrari-bound star, he believes Hamilton “does not seem willing to accept the reality” of Mercedes’ situation by continuing to search for a “magic bullet” with car setup.

Writing in his column for the Telegraph, he said: “If I were in Toto Wolff’s position, the first question I’d be asking on Monday morning would be why did we make these decisions to change Hamilton’s setup before the race.

“Why overhaul this setup rather than simply tweaking it? It was a bizarre decision.

“It does, however, characterise Hamilton’s approach to the troublesome Mercedes cars of the current ground-effect era – certainly in contrast to Russell.

“We have to believe what Hamilton says about his setup. Yet when you consider that these regulations came in nearly 50 races ago, for Mercedes still to be ‘experimenting’ like this shows that they are lost.

“Mercedes, with their record and resources, should at worst be fighting for podiums. You could understand teams like Sauber or Williams taking a shot in the dark with a set-up but Mercedes should be optimising what they have.

“Optimisation of the W15 is what Russell’s approach seems to be. He showed what the car can do, this is where they are and Hamilton and the team need to accept that.

“Hamilton still seems to be searching for that magic bullet that will suddenly see him leap to the front. Well, in all my years in motorsport I have never seen that happen.

“Mercedes have had a fundamental problem with their car since the start of 2022 and no amount of setup changes will fix it. It should always be about optimising what you have at your disposal, if you can do this it gives you a baseline to work from.

“The excuses must stop at some point. The decision-making process on Hamilton’s side of the garage has to be questioned.

“When Hamilton talks of these out-there setups, they are probably not as wild as he would have us believe.”

Anderson’s comments come after Russell appeared to openly question the idea that Hamilton is adopting different setups at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, where Hamilton claimed his car was better suited to the race than one-lap pace.

Asked about Hamilton’s claims, Russell told media including PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher in Sakhir: “Many people have said this.

“I don’t really know the big differences, to be honest, because as far as I’m aware with the cars we’re pretty similar.

“I don’t really focus too much on his set-up. Mine was actually more set up for the race than the setup he ran. At least it was on Friday [for qualifying].”